Scientist I - job 1 of 2

Job Description

IFF Health and Biosciences is looking for a Probiotic Strain Specialist in our Microbiome & Microbiology R&D group. Our IFF state-of-the art labs are located within the Experimental Station research site in Wilmington, Delaware. The successful candidate will be responsible for working with a highly interactive multidisciplinary research team. The successful candidate will need to be willing to learn new techniques and technologies and have the flexibility to carry out multiple assignments.

Job Requirements:

• Supports multiple projects by providing microbial genomics and bioinformatics expertise for probiotic strains, to serve as the primary person responsible for communications to the IFF regulatory team, customers and other colleagues with regards to strain safety and purity.
• Responsible for generating safety assessment reports and supporting regulatory filings for probiotic strains in IFF Health using data generated from IFF bioinformatics teams.
• Responsible for generating genetic drift or strain equivalency assessments for probiotic strains in IFF Health using data generated from IFF bioinformatics teams.
• Research specific aspects of probiotic safety, such as antibiotic resistance and mobility, and keep current with industry guidance from EFSA and other regulatory agencies.
• Ensures thorough documentation of process workflows, results and communications.
• Publishes reports and manuscripts to prove safety or purity aspects of probiotic strains.

Job Requirements

Required Qualifications:

• MS plus relevant experience in Microbial Genomics, Microbiology, Applied Microbiology or related field.
• Familiarity with public sequence databases and repositories such as NCBI and PATRIC.
• Familiarity with common methods for genomic sequencing and bioinformatics tools to perform prokaryotic genomics assemblies, annotation, identification of SNPs.
• Strong organizational skills and demonstrated ability to produce clear and concise documentation and reports.

Desired Experiences:

• Familiarity with methods used to detect microbial antibiotic resistance, virulence, antimicrobial production, prophage, CRISPR, and genetic elements using tools and databases such as CARD, BreSeq, ANTISMASH, ISfinder and similar.
• Previous experience performing standard microbiological assays such as minimum inhibitory concentration testing against antibiotics, bile salt and acid tolerance and hemolysis testing.
• Experience with phenotypic and genomic characterization of commensal microbes, including species that would be considered as next generation probiotics (NGPs).
• Strong publication record.